music, therapy, and me

Actually, that's not really true. I woke up at 3:40ish and remained awake. I wasted time on social media and have been puttering at home since then. It's been almost 6 hours since I woke up, and I have cleared off my sewing table, emptied two big boxes, and emptied nine little boxes into different storage. I also hung up a Star Wars poster in my hallway, and I intend on hanging another one by the end of the day. I have neglected the blog until now because I just didn't think about it. Isn't it Friday? If so, then it is time to talk about systems in music therapy. I am creating a new system in my home. It's an immense undertaking because I have so much junk and things that I have collected, so it will be a huge undertaking, to be sure. Here's what I'm trying to do... I want one of my bedrooms to be my music therapy room. It will be the place where I store my instruments, file folder activities, and extra music therapy things. Right now, I am collecting things...

Now, I make no secret of the fact that I am dedicated to MY way of writing things into therapeutic music experience (TME) plans in my life. I make my interns use my form as a way to indoctrinate them to MY way of thinking about how WE should (goblin alert) be producing materials and ideas for each other to use in music therapy settings. I share MY way of doing things with others as often as I can, so I am hoping that MY ideas have spread to other people in ways that help them plan and implement strong TMEs. There you go. This dedication to a particular process is something that is a bit pedantic, but it is also how my brain organizes TMEs, so it is what it is. I do not insist that others do things exactly like me (except, of course, for my poor interns during their first four months with me, but I don't insist that they do things MY way after they turn in their TME assignment file in month four), but I do find immense value in my way of doing things. When I was a student of music t...

As I speak, I am uploading a process video that I made yesterday. I am not necessarily the best videographer that ever was, but I am learning, and I do enjoy showing what I can do with a couple pieces of paper and a camera. I was nervous about an eye doctor appointment (that got cancelled so all those nerves were unnecessary), so I put together something I've mentioned before in my blog - a theme-based choice board for clients to use to shape their own music therapy sessions. The end result is gorgeous (if I do say myself), and I am so excited about getting the process on video that I could just burst! I CAN CHECK SOMETHING OFF MY TO-DO LIST!! It is taking a very long time to upload, but that seems to be the way things go around here. It will go faster once I am no longer using the internet for anything other than uploading. After about two hours of uploading, it finally was finished!!   So, why do I make these boards? It goes along with my current focus on my theme boxes and ideas...

I have a mantra that I say to myself before sessions that I just know are going to be a challenge for me and for my clients. It is a prayer, but it could also act as an affirmation if the person offering the thought does not believe in a deity or any sort of spiritual concept. Mine does start with an acknowledgement of my creator, so feel free to use this or scoff at it or change it to fit your belief system in any way that you need or want to. Here it is: "God, help me to be the therapist that these clients need in this moment." Variations include the following: God, help me be the best music therapist I can be for these clients right now. God, help me find the way into relationship with this group of diverse clients.  So, this mantra is something that I sit and say to myself on Tuesday mornings before my contentious group of young men who are "too cool" for following directions and doing work. Well, some of them are that way. Others are eager to engage and partici...

Yesterday was a very bad day. I had to write up eight students for severe behavior incidents, I need to write one more (at least), and I left the job feeling like a failure. After all that, I was doing my bus duty job and one of my co-workers found the arm from my Darth Tater keychain. I didn't even know I had broken it off, and there it was! That was the absolute last straw, and I ended up crying tears of joy and frustration in the hallway in front of five co-workers! What a day. I think I am going to spend my planning and preparation time sitting at the piano, transcribing songs that I've used in recent sessions. I want to be writing three therapeutic music experiences every week - getting them into my database and using them as well - but I haven't been writing things down very much. I think I'll take my jumpdrive to the laptop and sit in my big, beautiful music therapy room, and just sit down and compose some music. My Fridays are predisposed to chores like ...

Does this ever happen to you? You head to work full of plans, just to find that one thing has changed all of what you have planned into something new? That happened to me yesterday. I started off with a plan for what I was going to get done during my time as an internship supervisor and ended up just being the therapist. Not at all outside of my realm of experience, but not at all what I was expecting to happen. My day was full of interesting responses - to me, to the change in leadership, to the ways I was doing things, and just general stuff, you know? The most definite thing I can say is that we all survived. I'm not sure how effective I was as a therapist yesterday, but we all survived. There you go. I am currently struggling with a couple of non-direct care tasks and concepts that have surfaced just lately. One of them is documentation and the other is a presentation that I am supposed to give (after being postponed twice) on Wednesday. I have nothing to present to this ...

I returned to doing therapy with some of my groups yesterday. I sat down in the therapist place in the room and facilitated group music therapy for about 17 kids. I did one session in the music therapy room and another in a classroom. I was able to musically escort one group of students from the music therapy room to the art therapy room (as I was going to the classroom group) - something I haven't been able to do for a very long time - musically supporting transitions. I sang songs that I haven't used for a long time - TMEs that I developed as an intern and as a young professional - that still work the way they were originally conceived. Only two students all day had difficulties - one pretty intense, the other very mild. I observed the other three groups from a position that is a bit removed from the happenings - it is time to start giving my intern some space - literally and metaphorically. Again, I am heading back into the music therapy clinic as clinician rather than ful...

I am in need of a creativity kit for work. I'm doing lots more sitting these days, so I need something that I can contain and use to put together some projects as I am sitting and watching. This type of kit helps to separate my role from that of primary therapist to that of observer in the view of my clients. So, I am getting together my creativity kit. At this time, I am spending about 50% of my music therapy job time in observation, so I am doing lots of sitting and watching. I am uncomfortable with just sitting, so my creativity kit will give me something to do while I am sitting, watching, and taking notes on the sessions. The kit will also identify to my clients that I am busy and not just sitting there, staring at them. It will also keep me thinking that I am being productive. This kit will be really important to me in about several months when both of my interns are running sessions, and I have little to no active role in therapy. Ideally, the kit will be something con...